„Preserve the faith. Perhaps it’s far too late, a cry in the classic wilderness, a mission impossible. At a modest estimate at least 9,000 Hindi language films — this is news as well as a comment — have just skedaddled with the wind. Which is to say, because of a combination of avoidable factors, a chunk of Indian cinema heritage has been lost forever. And more film prints are perishing even as these words are being written…

The life span of a film in its pristine form is not more than a decade, unless it is carefully stored in ideal climactic conditions, periodically restored and ‚treasured‘ as it were. Many film processing laboratories in Mumbai, which stored hundreds of prints, would issue advertisements till three years ago. The ads would state that if the films were not picked up by their copyright holders within a stipulated date, the reels kept in tin cans would be destroyed. Storage costs have spiralled. Moreover many film producers and studios have just not claimed their property…

The original prints of films by eminent filmmakers Mrinal Sen, Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani are believed to be in a ‚threatened condition‘. Recently, Ketan Mehta was shocked to learn that only a 16 mm print survives at the archive of his seminal film Bhavni Bhavai (1980). Needless to emphasise, there are many more films — good, bad and the significant — that have just evaporated because no one cares. “ (Hindustan Times)